Every business needs a sharp website. It’s a primary touchstone for your brand, and it helps convey your company narrative. Aside from securing a top-notch developer, here are four major areas to consider when developing your website.
1. Design
A well-designed website will help establish who you are, down to every button, form, header, and font. It also can draw attention, demonstrate credibility and, if carefully executed, lead customers easily to exactly the products they’re looking for. The website design should manage these critical points concurrently: it should intuit what your customers need and the way they think, educate and provide information, promote your brand’s identity, tell your company narrative, and look unbelievably awesome.
At the moment everyone is crazy about parallax, but there’s always something trending in the web design world. It’s wise to shop around, find designs that you like, and really work on establishing cohesion between current trends and your own company “look.”
You can find a highly qualified web designer or agency, but there’s also the option of using a tool like Squarespace or Wix. Both provide beautiful templates that are fairly easy to customize and manage. Need more options? This helpful article from PC Magazine gives you the lowdown on building websites using available tools and services.
2. Content
If you’re familiar with SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you probably already know something about the advantages of killer content. Google is known for making their formulas a bit esoteric these days, but one common understanding is that the content you create on your website helps drive traffic and boost search engine rankings. Along with the design, content needs to be rich, engaging, and relevant.
The best way to do this is to hire a professional copywriter or agency to help you create content for web and landing pages, but you can also think outside of the box. Everything on the site is considered content, and Google prefers what’s called “evergreen content.” Evergreen content is essentially content that doesn’t change, can withstand the test of time, or is universal. For example, a section or post that contains the basic definition or explanation of what something is might be more valuable than a time-sensitive, momentarily relevant piece. Adding a blog to your site might be beneficial here, as you can update it often and add evergreen content as you see fit. You can also consider a glossary or FAQ section.
There are plenty of ways to add content, and, luckily, Entrepreneur happened to lay out a few more strategies right here. Consider your focus, position, and identity to provide orientation for your content creation, and keep people coming back.
3. Social
One of the most important pieces to any brand’s evolving and distinctive narrative is social media. Being engaged on popular social media channels can boost exposure, generate traffic, and start conversations. But it’s not enough just to have it or do it; weaving this piece into your website can help you build the all-encompassing customer experience that everyone’s talking about.
You can integrate social media right onto your website to help drive your company voice and narrative. Be sure to include buttons prominently, right on the header, footer, or wherever it fits nicely. Include strong CTA buttons (calls-to-action) that help people instantly like, share, or follow your company directly from your page. You can also integrate a feed for your most active social media outlet, maybe Twitter, to give visitors updated on what’s happening. This also adds a dynamic, real quality to your page, full of quality content that moves effortlessly and reflects your company voice instead of being silent and static.
And if you need help cultivating a savvy social media marketing campaign, look no further than my friends at Bad Rhino. They mix distinct and carefully crafted content and storytelling with smart, insightful analytics to fully optimize your custom social media plan.
4. Payments
Don’t forget payments.
If you’re selling anything, you can implement and embed a payment method right on your website. This seems like a no brainer for eRetailers with online stores and boutiques, but online payments can also work wonders for businesses accepting any type of payment: services rendered, taxes, bills, rent or monthly subscriptions, to name a few.
Adding a payment option right on your site shows customers you are no spring chicken when it comes to advancing payment technologies, and it provides a convenient, secure method for people to pay. Customers that come to your website simply to pay are more likely to stick around, return to your site, and engage with your brand than if they only use more traditional payment methods. And this? Well, it’s exactly what you want.
Photo Credit: Flickr user Umberto Salvagnin
